Dawn
by alyssagabrielle
Summary: The sky was lighting up and different shades of pink and orange and red were poking through the clouds. He watches it for a moment before looking over at Sandy. She was exhausted, he could tell. Her blonde hair was a mess, her blue eyes a little watery. But she was looking at that sunrise with such a smile, with such amazement on her face. He understood why Sodapop loved her.
**_warning:_** ** _there is a racial slur mentioned in here and heavy mentions of gang violence._**

 ** _disclaimer: i don't own The Outsiders,_** **Calogero, or the** **Chez Bippy.**

 _ **Dawn**_.

His father is English. His father doesn't have an accent, like everyone is supposed to when they say they're English. His father's father's father was from England, or something like that. Dallas learns that that is just an _ethnicity_ , that it doesn't mean he's from the country.

His mother is Sicilian. She tells him that they're Sicilian, that they're not _just_ Italian. He doesn't understand this. He asks her a number of questions about this. Why aren't they just only Italian? She was a pretty young woman, not even twenty five years old. She had olive skin turning the color of gold when the summer hit, she had thick, dark curly hair that went past her shoulders. She had a tiny nose, her nostrils lifted upwards a little bit, making it appear bigger than it was.

Dallas looked more like his father than his mother, This doesn't bother him very much, until he was four years old, when he sees the other boys on the street. At four years old, he had lived in the same apartment building in East Harlem for all of his life. It was 1952 and the neighborhood was still very well Italian, though things were probably going to be changing soon. At four, Dallas didn't really know that though.

He played with the boys down the street. The boys down the street were six years old, a little older than he was. They were nice Italian boys, his mother told him, urging him to get out of the house and talk with them. He was shy, so young. He had only clung to his mother and his father, only talked when he was spoken to.

Dallas took after his father. He was pale, like his father. He had his father's nose; thin and narrow. In his facial features, he looked a lot like his father. He still had his mother's eyes, though, and her dark hair.

Dallas didn't really have a relationship with his father. He didn't really know the man very well. He knew that that was his father. He knew that his father lived with them. They didn't talk very much, like a father and son were supposed to. His father only said his 'hello' and 'how are you?' to him, and Dallas would answer, but that was as far as their conversations went. As a young boy, he tried desperately to get his father's attention. But he just couldn't. After a while, he didn't try and get the man to see him anymore. They were almost strangers, living in that house.

His mother and his father fought a lot. He remembered them fighting. He remembered his father insulting his mother, he remembered his mother yelling at his father. Dallas tried not to remember these, he tried to forget the memories he had of them ever being together. He had a very good memory, though. The ability to remember his mother the way he did, at seventeen. He had lost her when he was four.

When Dallas was four, she decided she didn't want to be anybody's wife anymore. Along with not being anybody's wife, she must have not wanted to be anybody's mother, either. The ground was ripped up from beneath Dallas' feet and now everything was changing.

At five years old, Dallas came home from playing with the boys on the street to find his father placing everything in boxes. They're moving, Dallas is told. He doesn't understand why they were moving - Where were they moving? He didn't know. They move from East Harlem to Morris Park, in the Bronx. "Why are we moving here?" Dallas asked his father, for probably the millionth time, as they brought their boxes inside the new apartment. "Because," His father says in his sophisticated way, giving a shrug. "There's far too many _spics_ in that goddamn neighborhood."

Dallas didn't know what that meant, but he assumed it was bad. Everything went downhill from there, and it went downhill fast. At ten years old, Dallas was still living on the streets of the Bronx. (He had a new group of friends, more Italian boys, because his father liked the Italian neighborhoods for some reason. Dallas thought it was because his father must've missed his wife. It wasn't.)

Dallas' father was a full blown alcoholic and had been for years now. Dallas was neglected by his father, to a new extreme. The man acted like Dallas didn't live there. He left him alone, for days at times. He didn't leave any money for him. Dallas had abandonment issues because of this, because of his mother leaving.

Nobody really cared. Nobody was going to pay attention to him anymore. Nobody really cared.

In attempt to receive attention, Dallas stole money. He wasn't smart about it. A police officer caught him right away, ready to arrest him. Dallas was suddenly struck with fear, which wasn't new, but this was a new kind of fear. This was _authority_. This man wasn't nice. He could've taken Dallas to jail. It was on a cue almost. As soon as the officer started to lecture Dallas, a young man came running down the street. The young man was tall, very well dressed. He had to be maybe seventeen or eighteen. Dallas hadn't ever met the young man before. The man grabbed the police officer by the shoulder and began to whisper into his ear, so low that Dallas couldn't hear. Ten years old, he was going to be arrested. He was scared.

And within five minutes or so, Dallas was let go. The officer told him to 'scram' and slowly, Dallas walked down the streets. The money was still in his pocket, he wasn't arrested, he was okay. As he walked down the street, the young man came up to him. "Thanks for savin' me." Dallas mumbled, looking up at the elder slightly. "I hate cops sometimes. It's alright, you're jus' a kid. You'll learn eventually." Learn what, Dallas didn't know.

"I'm _Calogero._ Call me C."

"Okay. I'm Dallas."

"You ever need help again, let me know. I live a couple of blocks from here, my buildin' is right next to _Chez Bippy_."

"Okay. Thanks, Calogero."

Four years after that, once Dallas was running with a real street gang, he really could've used Calogero and his ties within the mafia. Street gangs were different than the mafia. The works of the mafia was organized crime, there was a plan behind everything; there was always somebody pulling the strings. Street gangs did what they wanted, when they wanted. They bought chaos to the streets, to the neighborhood. Dallas enjoyed it, he really did. Fourteen years old, he was fighting and stealing and living the life he wanted to live. He thought he wanted to live, anyway.

In the middle of some rumble, there was a fire lit and someone in his outfit brought a gun and of course, there had to be mistakes. Somebody in the other gang was killed. Everyone scattered, everyone ran. Nobody wanted to get caught. There was a boy, left bleeding on the ground, a bullet straight between his eyebrows. Nobody wanted to be there when the police arrived. Dallas was there, though. He watched it happen in slow motion. Everyone left and Dallas was just there, standing, watching the blood leave this boy's body.

He hears the sirens of the police cars and then he takes off, running as fast as he could down the streets. It's dark out, the street lights are on, but his mind is a mess. He's seeing red, all red. It's the first time in his life he's ever felt so scared. Not because somebody was dead. But because he was the only one left, when this person was dead. He could easily be blamed. Easily, his life could've been over. They send you to jail for life if you murder somebody - They could give you the electric chair. Dallas didn't want to die.

Instead of running to Calogero and his outfit, he runs to the train station. Why? Where could he go? Get on a train, get out of there. Get out of there before anybody finds out he even lived in this neighborhood. He hops on a train, unsure where he was going. He just knew he had to leave.

He switches trains every day. He spends a week on these trains, going further and further away from home. He ends up in Tulsa.

His time in Tulsa goes by fast. He's been there for three years already. In the three years he's in Tulsa, he meets the gang. This isn't a real gang, he knows this. They have rumbles, but they're not _real_ rumbles. They're a little different down south. He thinks that they're strange here, but these boys are alright. They're not bad people at all. Johnny reminds him of himself, in some way. Johnny was like a little brother to him, though, Johnny was only younger than him by a few months. He sees himself in Johnny and tries to protect him.

They're stricter with the law, down south. Dallas gets arrested within the first month he's there, because he was drinking underage. He gets thrown in the cooler a couple of times. It really doesn't bother him anymore. He had nobody but his pals waiting for him to get out, and he thought that they didn't really care, either. They were just passing time with him. He trusted them, he spent most of his time around them, but he didn't know if they were going to be his friends for the rest of his life.

He got involved with Sylvia early on when he was in Tulsa, too. He must've picked her up in the first year he was in Tulsa. She messed around too much. She was a gossip. She bitched, a lot. She didn't care about Dallas, only cared about making Dallas jealous. She was a good way to pass time. Girls didn't always come back to him the way she did.

The three years Dallas was in Tulsa, he became close with Sandy. Sandy was Sodapop Curtis' boyfriend and she had been since the seventh grade. Those two seemed to be already married when Dallas first came to Tulsa and they had remained that way until the moment he left. The gang was great and all, but sometimes it was easier to talk to Sandy. He didn't know why. Maybe it was because she was a girl. Girls were sometimes easier to talk to for some reason.

Sandy was easily one of Dallas' best friends. Not a lot of people knew that. Sodapop Curtis knew that and it drove him up a wall. Sodapop was _jealous_ of their friendship.

"He's too clingy with you." Dallas would tell the pretty blonde girl, wrapping an arm around her shoulder as they walked down a dark sidewalk. She popped in on him sometimes, just to make sure he wasn't dead or in jail. "He loves me." Sandy would reply, rolling her eyes, but leaning into him as they walked. "I'm gonna find you a nice girl, Dallas. Someone you could settle with." She would tell him. Sandy didn't understand that Dallas actually enjoyed the frustration that Sylvia put him through. He liked the cat and mouse games, the constantly going back and forth.

"Tell you what, you find some 'nice girl' for me to go out with, maybe I'll break up with Sylvia." He said it only to humor her, because he doubted that him and Sylvia would ever end this toxic cycle. However, she looks pleased and she smiles. She had such a pretty smile.

Sandy was his home away from home. Maybe that was why he hung around her so much. She actually listened to him when he spoke. He didn't have to talk to her about all the fighting and the rumbles and the nights he spent on cold floors of reformatories. That was his reputation around the boys. He was able to talk about other things with her. He told her about New York. He told her about the neighborhood he grew up in, how desperately he wanted to go back to it. He told her about _Calogero_ and how he saved him. He told Sandy about his mother, who he tried to forget about but never seemed to really leave his mind.

They climb to the roof of Buck's place in the middle of the night. She should be home. She was a good girl, a nice girl, she should've been home. Or at her boyfriend's house. She shouldn't have befriended a hood like him. But there they were, sitting on a blanket he brought up, looking at the sky. He was never one who enjoyed the way nature looked, the way that Ponyboy or Johnny did. He never understood what was so fascinating about it.

It's really early in the morning. Probably around five o'clock. The sky was lighting up and different shades of pink and orange and red were poking through the clouds. He watches it for a moment before looking over at Sandy. She was exhausted, he could tell. Her blonde hair was a mess, her blue eyes a little watery. But she was looking at that sunrise with such a smile, such amazement on her face.

In that moment, he understood why Sodapop Curtis was so in love with Sandy.

A few months after this, things go bad again. Nothing in Dallas' life stayed good for long, did it? Johnny and Ponyboy get mixed up in a murder, or something along those lines.

" _Johnny killed a Soc."_

They go to Dallas for help and he sends them further down South, far out, in the country. They shouldn't have come to him, he really didn't know what he was doing. Within a week, everything mostly settled down. Johnny was going to be in the hospital for a while, but he was going to live. He was badly burned, incredibly burned. But he was going to live. He'd never walk the same way, but he was alive. He was going to make it through this. Ponyboy was walking around town like he didn't have his head on anymore. The kid wasn't okay, emotionally. But it would eventually work itself out.

The gang was a little broken, a little lost. But they'd fix it all, wouldn't they? They wouldn't ever be the same and being around the group of them was becoming depressing. Dallas didn't like it. It made him uneasy. After a few days, he realizes that Sandy wasn't around anymore.

"What happened to her? Where'd she go?" Dallas brings it up to Sodapop.

"She went to Florida. She cheated on me with some other boy and she got pregnant."

The tone in Sodapop's voice let Dallas know that the boy didn't want to talk about it. Sodapop wasn't normal so upset like that. So, he must've been telling the truth.

"Where in Florida?"  
"Miami."

There is some tension between them that Dallas didn't notice before.

"Did you ever sleep with Sandy?" Sodapop asked, his eyebrows furrowing. Dallas blinked, looking down at the other boy.

"What? No, I never slept with Sandy." Dallas shook his head.

Within the next couple of days, Dallas made it his business to find out exactly where Sandy was sent to. He found out through Evie, Steve's girlfriend. They were always close; Sandy and Evie. So he figured she was the best place to find out. Evie, with her long dark hair that reached her waist and bright green eyes, gave Dallas the most uneasy smile once he approached her. Evie reminded Dallas of a little mouse, the way her ears poked out through her hair.

"Sandy's parents sent her to go live with her Nana. They said she was a disgrace to her family, so they sent her away. Sodapop tried asking her to marry him and everything. It's real sad, you know? The both of them should've run away together or something." Evie lets out a big sigh, closing her green eyes. Dallas notices for the first time that she has a spray of freckles across her nose. "She said she cheated on him." Evie added.

At that, Dallas looked up. Sandy made it clear how much she hated people who cheated in relationships. She was such a good person. She wouldn't have ever cheated on Sodapop. He knew that Sandy had lied. "Give me her address, Evie." Dallas ordered. Now with Sandy's new address, he had stolen Buck's T-Bird, and took a drive over to Miami. He didn't tell anybody where he was going, why he was going. He just left, determined to find his best friend.

Dallas knew what it was like to be abandoned. He knew what it was like to be ignored by your family. He knew how alone she must've been feeling and he knew that Sandy didn't deserve that. She didn't deserve to be so alone. It takes him a couple of days, but he makes it to Miami. He wasn't too good of a driver sometimes and he got a little lost. He ends up sneaking in her back window, into her bedroom. He startles her, unintentionally. Dallas felt out of place - Maybe he shouldn't have came all the way over here. What was he supposed to do about her situation? Agree that it was fucked up?

"You ain't dead yet, are you?" He asked her, taking a seat on the edge of her bed. She didn't even look pregnant. Maybe she wasn't pregnant and this was just one big old misunderstanding. "Not yet." She tells him. She didn't look pregnant at all. She only looked like she was tired. But not the pretty kind of tired she was when they were up on that rooftop those months ago. She looked like she had been through some sort of hell and he felt bad, like he should've been there protecting her.

They start talking. The air is a little different between them. But she's still Sandy. She'd never change, no matter what you put her through. He liked that about her. She asks him how everyone is and he tells her that they're all shit. This wasn't the right thing to say, because she looked like she could cry. And after a minute of blubbering, trying to form words, she does. She cries into his shoulder, soaking his black t-shirt, and he held her. He never understood how to comfort anybody, but he held her tight in his arms and pressed a kiss to her forehead, rubbing her hair a little bit. He assumed that it was working, that he was making her feel better, she wasn't complaining or anything and she didn't pull away.

Through her worries, she tells him that she could never cheat on Sodapop. She tells him, though the words don't actually leave her mouth, that the father of her unborn child was indeed Sodapop Curtis. He promises her that he wouldn't tell anybody. He was taking that secret to the grave.

She talks about giving the baby up once it's born. She's too young to be a mother, too young to give her life away like that. (Dallas wondered if his own mother felt that way when she was pregnant with him.) And he just shrugs, tells her that if she wanted to do it, he wouldn't tell her not to. She wasn't his girl, that wasn't his baby. Dallas really didn't have a say in this. He didn't want to pretend that he did.

He sneaks her out of her grandmother's home and takes her out to lunch at some drive-in. Though he insists she doesn't even look pregnant, he promises her that he'll slug anybody really good if they even look at them funny. It makes her laugh.

Dallas left Florida and started the drive to Tulsa again. It was as if he never left, nothing changed when he arrived. When he was in Florida, he told Sandy that he was going to return to New York and that he'd send her word if he ever got there. He didn't, he went straight back to Tulsa.

Around seven months pass. Things are different in Tulsa. Sodapop and Steve are drafted into the Vietnam War. Darry is dating a young nurse. Ponyboy is in school still. Two-Bit got a job at a grocery store, but, he never showed up. And Dallas? He wasn't with Sylvia anymore. He's hanging around another pretty blonde, Isadora. She's younger than him by a year. She's got thick, curly blonde hair that reached her shoulders. Isadora reminded Dallas of Sandy in some way. As if Sandy and Evie had been fused together and created this one girl. She was a nice girl who didn't mess around. Sandy would've been happy to see them together, even if Dallas wasn't the best boyfriend to her. Dallas was still restless, trouble-making Dallas. He didn't cheat on her, but he caused trouble amongst himself. He was thrown into the cooler a little more often now.

He gets a letter from Sandy. She's probably going to have the baby next week, she tells him through this letter. She doesn't ask him to show up, but he does anyway. He leaves for Florida and arrives in the next couple of days. Isadora is almost jealous over this. Maybe because she knew that Dallas would never do something like that for her.

Hospitals aren't really a place Dallas felt comfortable visiting. He arrived just in time. Sandy had just given birth the day before. He was scared something had happened to her while she was giving birth. He knew that some women died during childbirth and he didn't think some kid she was going to give away was worth dying over. When he walks into the hospital room, he places down the flowers he stole from the gift shop on this side table. Sandy was curled up in the hospital bed, her blonde hair spread across the pillows. "Hey, doll." He said gently, not recognizing his own voice. He wasn't ever gentle, or soft. "How are you holding up?" He asked, sitting on the edge of her bed.

"Well," She starts, her voice a little hoarse. Dallas gave her hand a little squeeze. He doesn't even ask where her baby is, he doesn't want to know. He came here for his friend and only his friend. "I'm not dead." She tells him. He grinned. "No, you ain't. Not yet."


End file.
